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Welcome !! Visit the library to celebrate Constitution Day! September 16, 2005 Check the Library Homepage for more information! FALL SEMESTER HOURS Congratulations to last month's contest winner, Rosalinde Gilliana!

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University Library Welcomes Sara Baron - New Dean!
by Ellen Cox, Administrative Assistant

We are pleased to have Sara Baron as our new dean. Sara comes to us with a wealth of lifetime experiences. As a military "brat", she has traveled the world, living in England during her high school years while her father served in the United States Marines. She claims both Virginia and Massachusetts as her home; her maternal grandparents living in the northern neck of Virginia and her fraternal family in Massachusetts.

Dean Baron is a graduate of Southwest Texas State University, University of North Texas and is currently working on her Ed.D, in Higher Education Administration from the University of Massachusetts Boston. Having worked in a variety of library settings, Dean Baron has new ideas and experiences to ehhance the future of Regent University Library.

In July, Dean Baron moved from Boston to Virginia Beach. During her road trip from Boston her precious cat Mimi escaped no less than two times. Thankfully Mimi is adjusting to the new surroundings. Dean Baron is also adjusting to Virginia Beach and it should be noted, she is not complaining about the traffic after commuting through Boston's Big Dig.

Please stop by library administration to welcome Dean Sara Baron to the Regent community.

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Preferred Searching - What is it?
by Leanne Strum, Coordinator of Systems and Technical Services

If you are working on a literature review, research project, class assignment, favorite author, or if you just want to keep informed of new titles added to the library in your subject field - then creating a "preferred search " will help you. With the click of a button you can save your search. This will prevent you from having to key in the search each time and will let you check out new materials quicker.

Just follow these easy steps:

1. Start by clicking the "My Library Record" link (see figure 1) from the library catalog web site ( http://library.regent.edu ).

 

Figure 1

 

Enter your last name and library identification to login (see figure 2).

Figure 2

2. Once you are logged into your record, click the button marked "Search Catalog."

3. Search for your favorite author, subject, title, etc. When your results are displayed, click the button marked "Save as a preferred search." The example displays a subject search on "social case work" (see figure 3).

 

Figure 3

 

4. The next time that you view your record, you will see a link "Preferred Searches" (see figure 4). Click on the link to display your list of saved searches.

 

Figure 4

5. You can check the "Mark for Email" box (see figure 5) if you want to be notified when a new title is added to the collection with the subject heading of "social case work." That means when an item comes in that was ordered by the library with that heading, you will be notified via email that it has arrived in the library. This automated email program runs weekly (every Monday morning at 4:00 am).

 

Figure 5

6. You will receive an email notification on Monday morning, if an item with the subject heading "social case work" was added to the collection in the past week (see figure 6 and 7).

 

Figure 6

 

 

Figure 7

 

7. To log out of "My Library Record", simply click on the "Log Out" link. "My Library Record" is your own personalized version of the library catalog. This system will not only allow you to save your searches, but you can view the titles that you have checked out, as well as renew items before they become overdue.

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Library Unveils New Databases
by Steven Kenneally, Assistant Librarian

The Regent University Library has been very busy this summer acquiring databases that are beneficial to the Regent community. Some of them include: Academic Search Premier, GeoRef, World History Collection, and New Testament Abstracts. Of the databases listed here, three are produced and compiled by the database vendor EBSCO.

New EBSCO Databases:

Academic Search Premier is "the world's largest scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database containing full text for nearly 4,700 publications, including more than 3,600 peer-reviewed publications. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for all 8,176 journals in the collection."

New Testament Abstracts "is a product of a partnership between ATLA (American Theological Library Association) and the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. The database is an indispensable research and bibliographic aid for scholars, librarians, clergy, and students of the New Testament and its historical milieu. The database contains more than 33,000 article abstracts, 1,200 review abstracts, 12,600 book abstracts, and 50 software abstracts. Each year an additional 2,150 articles from more than 500 periodicals in numerous languages are selected for inclusion. In addition, nearly 850 current books are also summarized annually. Article coverage in the database dates back to 1985."

World History Collection" offers a global look at history with content from Africa, Asia, North and South America, Europe and the Middle East. World History Collection contains cover-to-cover full text for more than 130 titles, including many peer-reviewed journals. Full text dates as far back as 1964."

(Typical search screen for an EBSCO database.)

New CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts) database:

GeoRef "provides access to the geoscience literature of the world. The database contains over 2.2 million references to geoscience journal articles, books, maps, conference papers, reports and theses."

(Typical search screen for a CSA database.)

In addition to the new databases, one of our current databases of full text electronic books, ebrary Academic Complete, has announced it will partner with five new international publishers. The new publishers include: Oxford University Press, Brill Academic Publishers, Manchester University Press, SAGE Publications, and Artech House. The partnership between ebrary and these publishers will greatly benefit the academic community.

The Library works hard to select the best possible research tools for our students, faculty, and staff. We hope you will take advantage of these wonderful new resources!

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Deeper into Databases

This is an exciting new series that will highlight one database each month. We will present a facet of a specific database that is unique and different from other databases. This issue of Library Link will focus on the newest version of the Oxford English Dictionary. One interesting feature of OED Online is that you can find what words were added to the dictionary in a particular year.

Here are the steps:

Step 1.) From the OED homepage, click the advanced search tab at the bottom of the screen.

Step 2.) Type the specific year you are looking for in the first text box.

Step 3.) Click the dropdown arrow of the box directly to the right, and select "First Cited Date".

Step 4.) Click the "Start Search" button and wait for your results. The results will be listed in alphabetical order.

This is just one of the interesting features of the Oxford English Dictionary. Take the time to check it out!

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Library Services for Undergraduate Students
by Harold Henkel, Assistant Librarian

Welcome to our new and returning undergraduate students. This space will be home to a regular feature with tips and help selected especially for usefulness to undergraduate research.

3-Point Library Checklist for a Successful Academic Year:

•  Take the Library Course in Blackboard, Information Research and Resources during your first semester. The course includes animated tutorials and will put even the beginning researcher on the road to becoming a proficient detective of print and electronic information. Topics include using the research process, searching databases, and evaluating web sites.

•  Sign up for a RefWorks account and take the interactive tutorial. RefWorks is a powerful research tool that allows you to import references from the Library's databases, manage your citations, and format your bibliography in seconds. Spending a little time with Refworks now will save you time and stress later when you are finishing your papers.

•  Sign up for an Interlibrary Loan account. Local students can use their Interlibrary loan accounts to request books and articles not available from Regent University Library. Distance students use Interlibrary Loan to request books and articles from the University Library as well as articles not available from Regent. For speed, articles are usually delivered by email in PDF.

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Book Spotlight--The Landmark Thucydides
by Harold Henkel, Assistant Librarian

The Peloponnesian War (431- 404 BC) was a civil war of unprecedented savagery which engulfed nearly the entire Greek world. Thucydides tells us that he foresaw that war between Athens and Sparta would be terrible and "more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it." Accordingly he wrote his history of the conflict "as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human beings must resemble it if not reflect it." and "not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time."

Not least among the work's themes is leadership. Thucydides saw the tragedy that befell Athens due in no small part to the ascendancy of demagogic leaders following the death of Pericles, who "led [the multitude] instead of being led by them; for as he [Pericles] never sought power by improper means, he was never compelled to flatter them..With his successors it was different. More on a level with one another, and each grasping for supremacy, they ended by committing even the conduct of state affairs to the whims of the multitude."

The Landmark Thucydides, first published in 1996, is an extraordinary work of scholarship. The editor, Robert Strassler, conceived the work when he noticed that many of his students who enjoyed Homer and Herodotus became hopelessly lost in Thucydides. What was needed was a reader-friendly edition. The Landmark Thucydides magnificently fulfills this need with specially commissioned maps, explanatory marginal notes, appendices on subjects of special relevance to the text, and a comprehensive index. The work is introduced by the renowned classics scholar Victor Davis Hanson. Described by one reviewer as "the finest edition of Thucydides' history ever produced," The Landmark Thucydides is an ideal introduction and guide to the greatest historian of the ancient world.

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